Here come the dogs: Iditarod Restart; Mike Williams, who runs because he lost his six brothers; Rose Albert - artist - first Native woman to race

What is it that thrills people so, just to see dogs run across the snow that covers a frozen lake as they sprint away to begin a 1300 mile race from Willow, Alaska, to Nome?

I don't know, but damn, it is thrilling. It thrills me.

Now, please, click on this photo so that you can see a larger copy.

I can't stand it, thinking that you might only see all these faces so small as they appear here.

Two of this year's Iditarod dogs.

A team comes charging.

Here come the white dogs who pull Jim Lanier of Chugiak.

And this is Mike Williams, Yupiaq Eskimo of Akiak, being pulled by his dogs. Mike is a rehabilitated alcoholic who runs to encourage all those who battle that same disease to try sobriety. Once, he had six living brothers and he loved them all.

All six are dead now, and all were killed by alcohol.

Mike draws closer to the camera. 

In the year 2000, I followed Mike along the trail in my little airplane, the one I called "Running Dog;" the one that sits broken at the side of the house, now.

Mike passes the camera.

When I first started this blog, I stated that I would mix pictures and stories of the present up with those of the past. 

Yet each night when I sit down to do this, time presses, and so I have yet to do that. 

I think I will start with Mike. Sometime between now and when the race ends, I will post a few of the images I took in 2000, along with a little bit of his story.

And there Mike Williams goes, off to Nome.

I photographed many other mushers at the restart, and many dogs, but for the sake of space and time, I have limited this to my friend, Mike Williams.

I had another good Iditarod musher friend at this year's race, namely Rose Albert of the Yukon River village of Ruby, who now lives in Anchorage. In 1982, Rose became the first Alaska Native woman to run the race.

In February of 1983, I visited her and her late brother, Howard, at Howard's trapping cabin, 50 miles upriver from Ruby. Howard was a veteran of the race and Rose had ran with his dogs. In 1983, Howard was running again.

Rose is a full-time artist and, no offense Jon Van Zyle, but in my opinion, she is the best Iditarod artist out there. She paints her life, and her natural talent is great.

And some come to the Iditarod not just to watch dogs, but to make snow angels atop the lake.

Come back tomorrow, and I will introduce you to a few of my fellow photographers who were at the restart.

They call it "the restart" but it is actually the real start. What happens in Anchorage is all ceremony, done for show.

The race starts when the dogs leave Willow.

Following a fine lunch with excellent company, I witness the mercy killing of an injured moose calf

This day began hard. I had gone to bed at 3:30 AM, and the workshop in Anchorage was scheduled to begin at 8:30, which meant that I had to leave the house by 7:30. I seldom sleep well, and even worse when I must get up early. I tend to wake up within 15 or 20 minutes of whenever I fall asleep, just to check the time.

This happened repeatedly throughout the three-and-half hours that I was able to spend in bed. I figured that if I got up at 6:50, this would give me time to shower, get dressed, warm up the car and leave in time to stop at MacDonald's to buy an Egg McMuffin and hashbrowns to eat along the way.

So I got up right at 6:50, stepped into the master bedroom bathroom, then became aware of the sound of water flowing through pipes, and the spray of a not too distant shower. This meant that either Jacob or Lavina or both were already taking a shower in the other bathroom. 

I did not want to give whoever it was either a cold or hot shock by turning on the water to our shower, so I went back to bed and then lay there, listening, waiting for the water to be turned off.

This happened somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes later. The water was still hot when finally it began to spray on me, but it only stayed that way for about two minutes. My shower was short.

Soon I was on the road, with a mug of coffee that Lavina had made for me, along with a free Latte that they had given me at MacDonald's. I love McDonald's egg McMuffins, hash browns and regular coffee, but this McMuffin was dry, the hashbrowns too greasy and I did not like the latte, so I stuck to Lavina's coffee, which, as is everything she prepares, was excellent.

I arrived at the workshop just a few minutes late, and had to take a seat at the back of the class, which I hate. I like to sit right up front. A bit later, I noticed an empty seat three tables ahead, and moved to it.

I won't describe the class or the teaching, but the morning session was all about Lightroom and it was great. I learned many useful things.

The man in the picture is Charles Mason, who I have known since I first saw him climb off a snowmachine on the sea ice off Point Barrow during the great gray whale rescue of October, 1988. Charles is not only an outstanding photographer who knows how to photograph contrasting asses of distinction, but, as his Macintosh Powerbook Pro attests, is also a loyal, patriotic, American. 

Despite my interest in the class, I figured this day would have two highlights that would rise above the all rest. The first would be lunch, which daughter Melanie had committed to me.

We met at "Ultimate Thai." When she first suggested it over our cellphone connection, I thought she said, "Ultimate Pie." I had  wondered what kinds of pie they served.

Note the position of the band of sunlight as it falls upon her shortly after we first got together.

Now notice the shift in the band of sunlight, as our lunch nears an end. It is so good to have the sun back. Alaska's days remain the shortest in the nation, but spring rapidly approaches and the daylight is piling on fast.

Soon our days will be the longest.

It had been -5 at the house when I left, and in Anchorage it was a positive 23 by afternoon, pleasantly crisp. It felt kind of like spring was already here.

As for lunch, our conversation was pleasant and bore no significant import and sometimes, these are the best kind. She did express concern about my consumption of fast food. 

"I've been reading your blog, Dad," she said.

It was a good and pleasant lunch. I was sorry to see it end, but eager to get back to the workshop.

As I turned off the busy New Seward Highway into the driveway to the BP Energy Center, where the workshop was taking place, I was surprised to see police cars with flashing lights, and an officer wielding a shotgun.

I missed him, but did snap this shot as I crept by at about two miles per hour. My settings were still set for inside the restaurant and I badly overexposed. That is why it looks so strange.

Wondering what was going on, I turned into the parking lot, which is divided into two halves. The farther half is closer to the BP Energy Center door and, just as it had been in the morning, appeared to be full. I pulled into a spot in the first half, not far from where the police cars were parked. As I got out of the car, I saw three policemen advance slowly into the trees, their weapons held to the ready.

It had to be an injured moose. I soon spotted it, obscured by birch trees - a yearling calf, lying in the snow. As it's mother stood in protective watch, it struggled to rise from the snow. I felt a little sick inside, both to see it struggle in pain, and because I had the certain knowledge that, very soon, it would be dead.

In this photo, trees obscure two of the policemen, but if you look closely, you can see what appears to be the glove of one of them. The one that you do see points his shotgun at the moose calf. I assume it must be slug-loaded. The birch also camouflages the calf, but again, a close study will reveal its head, poking out from behind a tree, down in the lower left hand corner.

Although he is taking aim, he and his peers are being exceptionally careful. They are checking, double checking, triple, and quadruple checking.

A click on the photo will reveal a larger copy of the image.

As I shoot it, I hear the female officer, who is now in the same parking lot as me, but a bit closer to the entrance through which I just came, shout angrily at me, "Get back in your car! Get back in your car! Get back in your car right now!"

I was not about to get back into the car.

I told her that I am a photojournalist and that I had a right to document what is happening here. Again, she told me to get back in the car. She sounded very angry. I doubt that she believed me. I was not holding a big,  professional-looking camera, but only my tiny pocket camera, a camera that anyone might carry.

Most of the time, this pocket camera is great for blogging. I can carry it anywhere and it does not weigh me down or tire me out. It does not attract attention, the way my big D-SLR's do. I always know, though, that every now and then I will come upon a scene that the pocket camera is not really suited for. This was such a scene.

But when something happens and you have a certain camera in your hands, that is the camera you must use to do the job.

"You could get shot!" she yelled. "Get back in your car!" 

I was about 89 degrees from the impending line of fire. My car was about 90 degrees. I did not think that I would be a whole lot safe in the car. Anyone in the far parking lot would have been in greater danger of taking a stray slug.

"Come here! Come here!" she said.

I moved slowly toward her, studying the scene as I did. The calf had now risen to its feet. The apprehensive mom was checking it out. I found myself with a better angle to see them through the trees, so I stopped to shoot the above scene. This angered the officer. I did not want to anger her, but I had to take the picture.

If you look closely at the above image, you can see blood, running down the left-rear leg of the calf.

As it struggles to keep its injured leg suspended, the calf attempts to move away from the danger. Its mother momentarily steps toward the danger.

"I am trying to keep you from getting shot!" the policewoman said. "Do as I say! You do not want to mess with me!" The implication was clear. A mental image appeared in my head, of me leaving the scene in handcuffs, in the back of a squad car.

She was right. I did not want to mess with her. Yet, sometimes, when a person sets out to document the world around him, he must stand up even to the threats of a police officer.

I could sympathize with her, too. Anchorage has had many bad moose incidents take place because people do stupid things, like taunt moose, throw rocks at moose - occasionally, such an incident results in human death or injury.

Even though I was obviously safely out of the line-of-fire, perhaps she truly did worry that something could go drastically awry and one of those shotgun slugs could inadvertently slug into me, although it appeared to me that the officers assigned to euthanize the calf were advancing in a most deliberate and cautious manner.

The thought also occurred to me that she might not want her fellow officers to be pictured gunning down a moose calf. Clearly, it was something that needed to be done and no knowledgeable, rational, person could hold it against them. Still, someone surely will.

Even so, the Police are a public entity and their actions subject to the public eye. As long as I did not interfere, I had every right to photograph what was happening before me. I knew that I had to compromise, by shooting from a position closer to her, but I could not back down.

"Ma'am," I stated emphatically, "I am a professional photojournalist and I have a constitutional right to document what is happening here and if you prevent me from doing so, you will be violating my First Amendment rights."

"I'll worry about that later," she said. "Right now, I need you to do what I say."

"Later..." when it was all done... when there would be no photographs left to take... when, as far as the visual record was concerned, it would be as if it had never happened.

I climbed atop the snow berm that rose in front of her, and there took this image of the officers as they took aim.

The man in the suit studied the scene. He stood in the area where the police had first gathered. I was quite certain he was official - maybe police, maybe game. Perhaps he was someone whose name I have read in the newspapers. Maybe not. Maybe he was just a bystander - but I don't think so.

A shot was fired. It hit the calf, but did not bring it down. Limping on three legs, it hobbled off a short distance with its mother. She would have been accustomed to having her calf rapidly flee right on her hooves away from any perceived danger. Now the calf did not rapidly flee, but moved slowly.

Now, she held herself back to the pace of the calf.

The officers continued to advance toward the calf. More shots were fired. All hit their mark, but still the calf did not go down.

It was awfully damn hard to watch, let alone to photograph. I wanted to scream, "Get a rifle! Get a rifle! Get it over with! End this suffering now!" But a rifle would have been too dangerous to humans. An errant bullet would carry much farther than a slug, even after it passed through the calf. When I took this image, the cow was maybe 10 feet in front of the calf, but panic was beginning to overtake her.

I thought I counted six shots, but later got confused, and wondered if it was seven.

The mom finally panicked, and fled across the parking lot.

Please take note of the blue vehicle in the far section. I am not certain it is the one, but later a blue vehicle will enter the narrative. It could be that one. It might be another. All I know for certain is that it was blue.

She turned to watch as her calf went down and then did not get up.

She was angry. The man in the suit now stood right beside me and we both stood not far from the van you see above. "Be ready," he said in a friendly but earnest voice. "She's going to charge. I've seen it a hundred times."

I knew that he was correct. I took note of the nearest automobile in the direction away from the line between mother and downed calf (the van was closer, but toward the line). It was my car, and it was about 40 feet away. I started to move slowly toward it. Sure enough, the cow charged across the parking lot, reached this spot, kicked up the flecks of hard-packed snow that you see flying and from there came straight for us.

We skedaddled towards the car. I was worried that she might kick in the paint job, but she pulled up short.

"She's done now," said the man in the suit. "It's over."

She went back into the midtown, highway-bound, band of trees. 

Now I faced a bit of a dilemma. I wanted to stay; to take more pictures, to talk to the officers involved, to follow the process through to the end. I wanted to find out who the man in the suit was, what his job was, how he had come to see such a thing "100 times."

But I knew that by now, the afternoon session of the workshop had probably already begun. I had paid good money to attend this workshop and I needed to learn what was being taught in there. Missing just a little bit could make a huge difference in my comprehension of what would follow.

"What happened?" I asked one of the three officers who had pursued the calf through the trees, "Did the calf get hit by a car?"

"Yes," he said. "Hit and run. But somebody took down the license number. We're going to find the driver."

Anyone who lives in this area can understand how a driver could hit a moose. It happens all the time. I have almost hit a number myself, because they can suddenly dash out of the trees and be in front of you in an instant. Once, one did this to me and I slammed on my brakes to come to the most sudden non-crash stop possible. I came so close to smacking it down that in sheer fright it fell down flat on its side.

Virtually every day, a driver smacks down a moose - especially this time of year. So we all understand.

But to hit a calf and run, to drive off and leave it to what fate you do not know...

I quickly took this shot from a safe spot, then headed back to the BP Energy Center.

The hall on the second floor was both quiet and empty as I approached the classroom. Even though the doors were closed, I could hear the voice of instructor Kevin Ames coming through, so I knew that I was late. Class had begun.

I stepped inside and saw that he had his cellphone to his ear. He was telling someone that he had just begun class and could not talk now; he needed to go.

I had not really missed anything.

Not long after I came in, BP staff stepped in to tell us to be very careful if we went outside, as moose were about. Shortly afterward, we were asked if any of us owned a certain blue car. The back window of a blue car down in the parking lot had been shattered - shot out, he clarified, when asked.

For just a little while, it was a little bit hard to concentrate, but for a person who spends as much time in Lightroom, Photoshop and Adobe RAW as I do, it was riveting stuff, and I soon became absorbed in it.

As I mentioned in my last post, among Kevin's excellent images are many of beautiful women and all, no matter how much or how little they wear, are tastefully posed. 

About mid-afternoon, he pulled out a few of those images for a lesson on mask layers and smart objects. He showed us the original shots and in each case the woman was beautifully photographed. The images would not only catch the interest of any heterosexual man, but would attract women, too.

Yet, the women themselves had not seen the photographs that way. One gorgeous, seemingly perfect-proportioned model had looked at the original image Kevin had shot of her and saw someone who was fat and short. So Kevin showed us how he made her body appear slightly taller and thinner - just enough to make her happy but not to throw the viewer off. He kept her face and head completely in the original proportion.

Another model hated the way her left nostril looked, and she was not happy with the teeth that glimmered from the left side of her beautiful smile. So Kevin showed us the technique he had used to replace the left nostril and teeth with mirror images of the right, and how he had then modified the highlights and made other small adjustments to make it all look natural.

In this case, as you can see, he is working on the naturally striking eyes of a model. The photographer next to me is following along with his own laptop.

As for me, this is interesting stuff, but it is not what a photojournalist does. No, no, no...

For a photojournalist, there is a troubling side. The other day, I saw a striking image of a dog musher driving his team past Denali, at dusk, as the Northern Lights danced in the sky.

I didn't believe the picture. I thought it was faked. Yet, maybe it wasn't. Once, a man looked at a photo I had taken of an Iñupiat whaler harpooning a bowhead, and he congratulated me on my processing skills. He did not believe the photo was real. But it was.

And that is the downside to all this.

But Kevin's world of advertising and modeling is different. Nobody expects such images to be the literal truth. And I was glad to learn something about his technique. It improved mine, however I put it to use.

After the workshop ended, I shook Kevin's hand, congratulated him for providing an excellent learning experience, said a few "see you laters," then headed down the stairs and out the door.

Just beyond the doors I saw the above warning.

I then went to the spot where the calf had died. Drag marks stretched across the snow, leading away from big, blotchy, saturated, bloodstains to the parking lot - and there was this small tuft of fur.

From the spot where the calf had gone down, I twice punched the button on my auto-start. I saw the lights of the red Escape come on. I heard the engine turn over, then start; I saw smoke emerge from the tailpipe, then boil out into the chilly air.

I walked to the Escape, climbed in, then drove out onto the New Seward Highway, where the calf had been struck. As I braked for the next light, red, I glanced into my rear-view mirror and saw this truck coming.

Earlier, I stated that at the beginning of the day I had anticipated two highlights that I had expected to rise above all other experiences of the day. This is the second. I am in the apartment of my daughter, Lisa. She is dangling a toy mouse that Bryce bought for their new cat, which still does not have a name, other than "Deborah by Default."

I don't think even that temporary name is being used much anymore. Until what will become its final name reveals itself, she seems mostly to be called, "kitten."

The name "Juniper" did come to Lisa, and when she told me on the phone, I immediately liked it. Juniper struck me as a fine name, one that fit this cat.

Bryce does not like the name. So they await the revelation of a one that both can agree to.

Kitty finally catches her mouse. She plants a decisive bite on what, if it was flesh, would be its spinal column, then carries it to a place at the foot of the couch. There, she falls asleep with her "kill."

It is a sweet moment. 

I get flipped off, wind up by the airplanes; get together with some of Alaska's best photographers

The driver of this car flipped me off; he had red hair, he was rude, and he did not know the rules and courtesies of the road. For just a little bit, my heart was filled with a stupid desire to run him off the road and knock some sense into him, bump him around a bit with my titanium prothesis.

After he let his bird loose, I wound up behind him at a stoplight, in the lane just to left of him, behind the vehicle that was momentarily stopped alongside him. I studied the scene and plotted how, when the light turned green, I could cut into his lane, zip around the vehicle that now blocked me from him, pull up alongside him and then force him over to the side of the road and give him a dose of sense; teach him some rules of the road and give him some instruction in common courtesy.

Then some sense came into me. I decided to take a picture instead. When the light turned green, he gunned it and I snapped the shutter. The vehicle that had separated me from him then started rolling again and I did too. I could have gone straight down Ingra, and continued the confrontation, but I turned left, onto Northern Lights Boulevard.

He probably thought me a coward, imagined that he had scared me off, but a flipped bird isn't worth someone getting killed over, and you never know when it will come to that.

It has happened many times around here.

This great drama took place in Anchorage, where I wound up wasting over three hours. It was all my fault. I needed to deliver some photo files to a client and I had misunderstood and thought that anytime today would be fine, but she had a morning deadline and I missed it. She then called the place in New York where she was going to send the pictures and told them my images would be late, so I burned a disk and skeedadled on into Anchorage, where I planned to attend a workshop that started at 5:30 PM.

So I dropped the pictures off a bit after 2:00 PM and then I had nothing productive to do. I bought a burrito at Taco Bell, then drove slowly around, listening to various programs on NPR, including Fresh Air with Terri Gross and All Things Considered.

Somehow, when I just drive idly and aimlessly about Anchorage, I always wind up at Lake Hood, where the airplanes are. Always. I don't set Lake Hood as a destination. I just drive and soon I am there.

So here I am, on the bank of Lake Hood, watching a plane taxi for takeoff.

Damnit. When will I get an airplane again? This blog can never fully be what I want it to be until I get another airplane. Probably right now, I could not even pass the medical, given the events of the past year and my still incomplete recovery. Still, I must get another airplane and I must finish healing; I must get my medical renewed, so that the skies over Alaska can once again be mine again; so that Alaska can be mine, as it was before.

This is Kevin Ames, the expert conducting the workshop that lasts through tomorrow. You can learn about Kevin and his expertise here. For blog purposes, I think enough to say that he knows much about aspects of digital photography and software that I do know a fair amount about, but need to learn a lot more. So here I am, at the workshop.

In the course of his lesson, he showed us a few of his images. Many were of exquisitely beautifully women wearing very little but tastefully posed.

I have never taken photographs like that.

How come?

The workshop is being sponsored by the local chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers. Long ago, I was not a member and then I joined, but I let it lapse. Finally, after more than a decade of being out there there pretty much all by myself, I joined again, at the end of 2008.

It is not that I have had any intent to do so, but my interaction with Alaska's photographic community has been limited. I am sure this has hurt me, because you always learn when you get together with people of like interest. Everbody that you see in this picture knows things about photography and this profession that I don't. I would be much better off if I did. So would Margie.

Some of Alaska's best photographers are right here, in this image. I won't name any of them, because there are some in the group whose names I do not know.

They are all my peers and it is time that I get to know them better, time for me to learn from them and to give something back, instead of just being the loner all the time.

I can be still be a loner most of the time, but not all the time.

I take Margie to town and into the movie theatre

As I have noted in recent entries, each day since my return from Barrow I have taken Margie out to eat drive-through fast food from inside the car. She did not leave the house the entire nine or ten days that I was in Barrow, and prior to that, the only time she had left since February 2 was when I took her into the Alaska Native Medical Center to get new X-rays and a new cast.

So I had to get her out of the house and fast food is how I did it. Take the above shot, for example. It is from yesterday, when we went to A&W-KFC, where I bought hamburgers for both of us. Margie is not being rude by sitting in the back seat. She is not mad at me. 

She can't sit in the front, because she needs the entire back seat to stretch her unbendable leg out.

Today, I not only got her out of the house, but out of the car and into a real, sit-down cafe - Cafe' Europa, in Anchorage, to be precise. This happened because I had follow-up appointment with Dr. Duddy. Margie agreed to come with me, and to see how it would be to go a movie. "I will have to sit up front," she said. As it turned out, Dr. Duddy had to do emergency surgery today and so he cancelled the appointment. I wonder how many appointments he had to cancel the two times when he had to perform emergency surgery on me?

I took Margie to town anyway. 

After Cafe' Europa, we headed over to Century 16. We had planned to see "Gran Torino," starring Clint Eastwood, but we spent too much time eating and it had already begun, but "Taken," starring Liam Neeson, was about to begin, so we saw that instead.

I took this picture while we watched the previews, ate popcorn and drank bottled water.

As for "Taken," I don't know - lot of action and one does get the satisfaction of watching Neeson's character kill a few score of bad guys, but the subject (stealing people's teenage daughters and selling them into sexual slavery) could have used more serious treatment than just bash in his head and shoot him dead, I think.

I fly south, drinking cranberry juice as I go; Summer stays behind in Barrow

Here I am in Alaska Airlines Flight 52, sitting in seat 20 F, watching the Stewardess come down the aisle, serving soft drinks and pretzels, and selling alcoholic drinks and "snack packs" that are not at all worth the cost. She cannot take cash, but only credit or debit cards. That is why she holds the glowing device in her hands - it is a credit card reader.

She and her partner reach my row, which is empty except for me. "What would you care to drink, sir?" she asks.

"Cranberry Juice," I answer. I feel quite inflated with myself - she called me, "Sir."

Her partner hands her the cranberry juice and a plastic cup.

The stewardess hands me my cranberry juice. I am thirsty and it tastes very good. I want more, but she never offers me more. Not enough time, I guess. This leg is from Barrow to Fairbanks and only takes a little over an hour to fly.

I become curious as to who sits behind me. I turn around and see a baby. It is six-month old baby Noah of Barrow, with his mother, Bobbie.

 

But Noah and Bobbie are not traveling alone. Sister/daughter Nancy, five years old, flies with them. It is not right to leave her out of the picture, so she joins in.

There is one more sister, Summer, age 2. She has stayed behind in Barrow. I have no choice but to leave Summer out of the picture.

After Fairbanks, we fly on to Anchorage, where I am greeted by 30 degree air - that's above zero. It feels shockingly warm. As I stand on the curb waiting for Lisa to pull up and pick me up, I find myself standing by a guy who flew in from Portland.

He thinks it is cold.

A warm front has blown into South Central from off the Pacific.